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You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

nytimes.com

21–30 of 235 posts

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#21

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

In theory that sounds great, in practice you can find Facebook groups for ~stolen~ ahem lost iPhones for sale. The value of a bricked phone is never zero, so theft prevention isn’t as good as Apple claims.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#22
post #10
post #7

Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure…

Of course they don't use the same quality screens, because then the replacement would cost as much as it does in an apple store.

Sorry yeah that was my point. I personally don't find value in the cost saving.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#23
post #13
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.

> The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. Do you have a source? And which exactly competing android devices do you mean? Does the comparison factor in the popularity of the device?

There isn't a specific survey I can find pointing either way, which similarly makes the argument that theft is significant enough to justify restrictive and wasteful locks also moot.

By competing devices of course I am referring to other flagships which are of a similar price and feature set, like flagship Samsung phones etc.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#24
post #6

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.

That’s just because the thieves don’t consider the android devices worth stealing.

London sadly has an ongoing problem with phone snatchers and pickpockets, so on two occasions I’ve seen them nick an Android. In the first case, they just chucked it on the floor a few metres further down the road. On the second, the guy loudly shouted “what the fuck is this shit?” as he cycled down the road and threw it into a canal.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#25
post #6

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

This is such an absurd excuse. The competing android devices are not exactly known for being a more popular target for theft. This is just a copout pushed by Apple to justify obviously bad practices, and due to their reality distortion field, you guys eat it up.

The proper comparison is not with Android phones, it’s with iPhones before Apple introduced this feature. The news reported a global drop in iPhone thefts at the time [1].

[1] https://archive.nytimes.com/bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/1...

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#26

This control severely limits the utility of stolen iPhones, which is a good thing for me as an iPhone owner. There are other phones that consumers can choose that don’t have this pairing. But this pairing of parts is one of the reasons people choose and iPhone.

if this was their only intention they would let third party repair shops access to genuine parts or software tools. the reality is that third party "apple certified" repair shops are contractually less capable than uncertified ones, so much so that calling their service repair feels too generous.

apple do this to sell you phones instead of phone parts. if any of what you're saying was true it's simply a happy accident.

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#27
post #19
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't apple allow the owner to choose to decouple the pairing? It's telling why they dont.

Because thieves know that all iPhones are locked like this and thus don’t steal them. If they knew that some significant percentage were not locked they would be worth stealing again, and if it’s locked they just throw it in a dumpster. The fact that your phone is locked protects everyone else as well.

Somehow I doubt even a percent of owners would choose to unpair. And if they do for repair purposes, there's no reason they couldn't re pair/register. What am I missing?

Re: You Paid $1k for an iPhone, but Apple Still Controls It

#30
post #7

Anecdotal, but back in those "good old days" when you could get a screen replaced in 5 mins like this article said, on the three occasions I did this I ended up with the worst cheap Chinese knock off screens I have ever seen, the last time I ended up spending even more to get a genuine one. Hard to avoid this with small businesses when they need to make the enough of a margin at those cheaper retail prices. I'm sure…

It's interesting you underline the knock off is Chinese, when half of the high quality genuine Apple parts are also Chinese.

At this point I'd be more wary of a non Chinese parts for many of the replacements.

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